While the National Government refrained from withholding the elective franchise from men who had fought to destroy the Union, there is no doubt that disabilities and exclusions were imposed upon large classes in certain States of the South.
Blaine notes the imposition of disabilities on certain Southern populations despite the government's stance on suffrage.
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If this view of the subject be correct, as I think it is, then the Union must utterly perish at the moment when Congress shall arm one part of the people against another for any purpose beyond that of merely protecting the General…
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